Spurred by a post I saw elsewhere on the web I tried out some ‘trend-spotting’ of my own. Interestingly, the country which searches for topics related to ‘sex‘ the most is Pakistan. India comes in at number three and Indonesia at number six. Out of the top ten, six are Muslim majority nations. And the number one city in the list is Bangalore. When it comes to searching about ‘god‘ Philippines comes out on top although the rest of the list is dominated by cities and countries of the developed Western world. The small city state of Singapore is at number five beating the populous nations of India (sixth) and Indonesia (seventh). But funnily enough Philippines also takes the top spot when it comes to searching for ‘atheism‘. The rest of the list is entirely dominated by Western nations with India being the only exception at number nine.

The fact that India features on almost all the trend lists I tried out may have something to do with its large and young population who make up for the world’s third largest in number of Internet users. (China, the largest, of course doesn’t feature in these lists for various reasons!)

If you notice I have refrained from drawing any inferences from these statistics and am merely presenting what I saw. You can draw your own conclusions and try out more keywords at the Google Trends site. And for a perspective on these trends please do also see this chart of the world’s top 20 countries in terms of number of Internet users.

There was a reference to a certain Abdus Salam in the video and how no one remembers him any more, which led me to Google and after 30 minutes or so of reading online I discovered a great man called Abdus Salam!

Abdus Salam was a physicist and Pakistan’s one and only Nobel Laureate. He was also the first Muslim Nobel Laureate in the sciences, although Pakistan doesn’t recognise him as a Muslim! Because he belongs to the Ahmadiyya sect of Muslims who do not believe that Muhammad was the last prophet, for which they are persecuted all over the world and especially in Pakistan.

His extra-ordinary journey from very humble beginnings in a small town in Pakistan to the Nobel Prize is awe-inspiring. So is his apparent ease in striding the two dissimilar worlds of science and religion. A devout Muslim,  anecdotes abound about his encounters with Bertrand Russell and Einstein and the resulting discussions on reason and faith. Though he saw both religion and science as essential to explaining the world around and inside of us, he did make it clear that “the validity of a scientific truth can be adjudicated only according to criteria internal to science and not by appeal to religious, metaphysical, or aesthetic considerations”. But his greatest qualities were his humility, his incessant efforts at creating opportunities for research for scientists from developing nations and his undying devotion to his roots.

His efforts led to the founding of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy (now called the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in his honour), under the aegis of the IAEA and now UNESCO. In his own words,

The Centre provides the possibility for scientists to remain in their own country for the bulk of the time, but come to the Centre to carry out research for three months or so. They meet people working in the same subject, learn new ideas and can return to their own country charged with a mission to change the image of science and technology in their own country.

Despite the attention and adulation from many parts of the world, he remained deeply committed to his own country, Pakistan, even after experiencing multiple betrayals and rejections from his countrymen. He belonged to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam which was declared a heretical sect and its followers non-Muslims, in 1974 by the Pakistani parliament. (Non-Muslims are second-class citizens in Pakistan, by law.) He resigned as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the President in protest and left Pakistan for good. But he never abandoned Pakistan in his heart and arrived in traditional ethnic garb to the Nobel ceremony in 1979 when he shared the Physics prize with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow. Much later, when Professor Salam wanted to run for the position of Director General of UNESCO, the Pakistan government refused to endorse his candidacy, which is a pre-requisite, despite support from several developing countries. Other countries, including Italy offered him a citizenship to run for the post but he refused – he never gave up his Pakistani citizenship. He also continued to support with money and resources scientific development and education in Pakistan, including donating his entire share of the Nobel prize money. But he has constantly been vilified and disparaged in Pakistan to the point of being accused of being an Indian spy and his contribution belittled and forgotten.

But his greatest legacy by far was his steadfast belief in the universal nature of Science. In a foreword to Professor Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy’s book Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and Battle for Rationality, he wrote:

“There is only one universal science, its problems and modalities are international and there is no such thing as Islamic science just as there is no Hindu science, no Jewish science, no Confucian science, nor Christian science.”

Further reading:
1. Wikipedia
2. The Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting – Tributes to Abdus Salam at The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
3. Biography at nobelprize.org
4. Abdus Salam microsite at ictp.it

What is generally not so well-known is Jinnah’s personal life and private affairs. The creator of what is probably the first modern nation state whose basis was purely religion, was far removed from the picture one tends to have of religious fundamentalists. That is probably because he was never one. His vehement insistence on the necessity of Pakistan probably had other roots. We often forget how much influence personal rivalries or friendships, private insults – intended or otherwise – and compliments, play on the course of history. But I digress.

I came across a good article a while ago on ‘All Things Pakistan‘.

(All Things Pakistan is a brilliant endeavour to present another side of Pakistan which is different from “the dominant discourse on Pakistan that tends to be about various versions of ‘Pakistan – the cardboard cut-out’”. The purpose, as set out on the website is,

To embrace Pakistan in all its dimensions – its politics, its culture, its minutia, its beauty, its warts, its potential, its pitfalls, its facial hair, its turbaned heads, its shuttlecock burqas, its jet-setting supermodels, its high-flying bankers, its rock bands, its qawalls, its poets, its street vendors, its swindling politicians, its scheming bureaucrats, its resolute people – in essence, all things Pakistani.)

The article I am talking about is titled ‘A Look at the Personal Life of Jinnah: Ruttie Jinnah’s last letter to her husband’ and it discusses the love of Jinnah’s life and his second wife, Rattanbai “Ruttie” Petit, The Flower of Bombay (alias Maryam Jinnah). The letter in question is the last letter she wrote to him, a few months before her death at the age of 29. By this time they were almost completely separated as probably the demands on Jinnah’s time were too many and the differences between them were too wide to bridge and the relationship had broken down even though the love between them was still strong. She writes,

“I have suffered much sweetheart because I have loved much. The measure of my agony has been in accord to the measure of my love.”

She writes of life and remembrance,

When one has been as near to the reality of Life (which after all is Death) as I have been dearest, one only remembers the beautiful and tender moments and all the rest becomes a half veiled mist of unrealities. Try and remember me beloved as the flower you plucked and not the flower you tread upon.

The letter is very touching and well-written and gives an insight into the person that she was. And it is hard to reconcile this Jinnah, the man that touched the heart of such a beautiful soul with Jinnah the demon, that he is made out to be. Or maybe it is an ideal case for a study into the myriad and at times, contradictory facets of the human mind.

Delving a bit further, I found out the interesting story of how they met, how they got married in defiance of society and how it all ended so sadly. It is a fairy tale which does not end with the ‘happily ever after’. (ATP has another more in-depth article on this here. It tells the whole story of ‘Jay’ and ‘Ruttie’. Do give it a read.)

Jinnah is reported to have cried in public only twice. Once at Ruttie’s funeral in 1929 and once when he visited her grave in Bombay for the last time before leaving for Pakistan for good in 1947.

As the article concludes,

Jinnah left India in August 1947, never to return again, but he left behind a piece of his heart in a little grave in a cemetery in Bombay.

(© Dr. Ghulam Nabi Kazi‘s flickr photo set Plain Mr. Jinnah)

“President Zardari says Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are safe before asking for more help to protect them.”

There are very few things I strongly hate in this world and one of them has got to be the moral police. Two stories in today’s news caught my eye and both are related to this issue – one a severe, disturbing example, the other a far more light-hearted, even ridiculous but nonetheless disturbing – one in Pakistan, the other in India.

“they did this brutality just on suspicion. There was no trial. No evidence, no witness was produced.”

lies a very fundamental question, what is exactly an affair with reference to a 17 year old girl? Is she married? If she is, in my humble opinion that is a far greater crime than the one she has purportedly committed, assuming that a 17 year old married girl was probably married off against her informed will or decision. If she did make an informed choice and decided to commit adultery, then as an individual she has every right to. I am truly unaware of her circumstances, of her relationship with her husband and hence cannot make an unbiased judgement.